Bearcat wrestlers take 2nd at tourney

Provided Photo
Dexter High School's wrestling coaches and team poise for a picture Saturday after their second place finish at the 13th Annual Central Invitational Duals.

The Dexter Wrestling team traveled to Park Hills Central High School early Saturday morning to compete in the 13th Annual Central Invitational Duals.

This is a team style dual tournament format where the 12 teams are put into 4 pools of 3 and wrestle each team in their pool with the top 2 teams from each pool put into a 8 team bracket.

Dexter was in pool B with Luthern South and Festus High School. Dexter started the day by defeating Luthern South 66-10, and then defeated Festus by a score of 60-24 to win pool B.

Next up was Brentwood in the round of 8 and the Bearcats defeated them by a score of 60-24 to move on to the next round against the Park Hill Central Rebels in what proved to be the most exciting dual of the day.

The Bearcats held a slim 33-31 lead heading into the final two matches of the dual. Freshman Storm Massey (120 lb) defeated Dillon Ball 2-0 in overtime to give the Bearcats a 36-31 leading going into the last match between Dexter freshman James Mullins and Central's Jonathan Goheed. Mullins finished with a flurry with time expiring in the third period scoring a reversal with back points to score a 8-7 victory to secure the 39-31 victory and propel the Bearcats into the Finals against the Desoto Dragons.

In the finals the Bearcats lost 49-28 to the Dragons to finish in Second Place for the second year in a row.

Overall it was a good day for the Bearcats with junior Trevor Waldner, 26-1 on the year, and sophmores Jason Mattison and Dylan Bazarian all going 5-0 on the day. Freshman James Mullins was 4-0 and didn't wrestle in the finals because of back spasms. Bearcat Wrestling will be back in action on January 15th when they host Notre Dame, Anna Jonesboro, IL and Festus in a quad meet starting at 5:00 PM in the High School gym.